Saturday, 14 April 2012

Secular Café: Majorana anyone?

Secular Café
Serious discussion of science, skepticism, evolution, pseudoscience, and the paranormal
Majorana anyone?
Apr 15th 2012, 02:41

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17695944

Quote:

Scientists think they may finally have seen evidence for a famously elusive quarry in particle physics.

The Majorana fermion was first predicted 75 years ago - a particle that could be its own anti-particle.

Now Dutch researchers, who have devised some exotic and minute circuitry to test for the Majorana's existence, believe their results show the fermion to be real.

The team has reported the details of its experiments in Science magazine...

..."If you take a solid material and you make the right combinations, the natural particles living in these condensed matter structures, will also obey this defining property of Majorana fermions - that a particle is equal its anti-particle," Prof Kouwenhoven told BBC News.

"The system is still built out of atoms, with nuclei and electrons, but the electrons behave together in such a way that their collective state is a Majorana fermion."

Other groups working in this field of solid state physics are thought to be close to making similar announcements.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.

If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

Secular Café: Climate Change deniers quotemine Syracuse professor

Secular Café
Serious discussion of science, skepticism, evolution, pseudoscience, and the paranormal
Climate Change deniers quotemine Syracuse professor
Apr 14th 2012, 12:11

Interesting to see this go local and I am glad that SU jumped right in in calling the BS out.


Quote:

Is this finally proof we're NOT causing global warming? The whole of the Earth heated up in medieval times without human CO2 emissions, says new study...
Current theories of the causes and impact of global warming have been thrown into question by a new study which shows that during medieval times areas as far apart as Europe and Antarctica both warmed up.
It then cooled down naturally and there was even a 'mini ice age'.
A team of scientists led by geochemist Zunli Lu from Syracuse University in New York state, has found that the 'Medieval Warm Period' approximately 500 to 1,000 years ago wasn't just confined to Europe.
In fact, it extended all the way down to Antarctica.



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...emissions.html



Quote:

Another Researcher Falls Victim to the Echo Chamber of Climate Change Denial

An assistant professor of geochemistry at Syracuse University is the latest victim of the echo chamber of climate change denial which is used to mislead the public about the results of academic research.

On 21 March, Syracuse University issued a media release to draw attention to a new paper by Dr Zunli Lu and co-authors, which was published online in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters on 25 February.

The paper, 'An ikaite record of late Holocene climate at the Antarctic Peninsula', described the discovery of crystals of a rare mineral form of calcium carbonate, which decomposes at temperatures above 4°C, in sediments from a drilling site. By dating the occurrence of ikaite in the drilling core, the authors concluded that it "qualitatively supports that both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age extended to the Antarctic Peninsula".
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/bob-...b_1396044.html


Quote:

SU professor discovers a potential new way to study climate, and finds himself in the storm over global warming

Within a matter of days, Lu found himself being hailed by climate change skeptics across the world as the scientist who had proved their case — that man-made global warming is a myth.
Only one problem: Lu says the skeptics' conclusion wasn't true.
"The article was a 100 percent surprise," Lu wrote Tuesday in an email, about a report in Britain's Daily Mail tabloid, which announced that his research debunked the notion that global warming stems from man's burning of fossil fuels.
Not only was Lu surprised, he grew distressed over what he views as misrepresentations of his work by media outlets with an anti-global warming agenda. Last week, he took his complaints public, issuing a statement on SU's College of Arts and Sciences web page.
"It is unfortunate that my research. .. has been misinterpreted by a number of media outlets," Lu wrote. "Our study does not question the well-established anthropogenic warming trend." ("Anthopogenic" means "man-made.")
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.s...s_potenti.html

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.

If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

Wednesday, 11 April 2012

Secular Café: Will this ultimately be good or bad for science?

Secular Café
Serious discussion of science, skepticism, evolution, pseudoscience, and the paranormal
Will this ultimately be good or bad for science?
Apr 11th 2012, 21:42

We have become used to the standard pattern of scientific publishing, where papers are submitted to specialist journals, are peer reviewed and either rejected or published. But there is no doubt that it's an expensive process. Of course, people have been able to publish on the net for a long time, but how can quality be maintained?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...tific-journals

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.

If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

Secular Café: Important time for viewing Saturn

Secular Café
Serious discussion of science, skepticism, evolution, pseudoscience, and the paranormal
Important time for viewing Saturn
Apr 11th 2012, 21:38

Put 15 April in your diary!

http://www.space.com/15219-saturn-op...hing-tips.html

Quote:

On April 15, Saturn reaches opposition — the point when it is directly opposite the sun in the sky. When it reaches opposition, Saturn will appear in the midnight sky to observers on Earth. The sky maps and illustration of Saturn accompanying this guide shows where to see the planet in the southern sky on April 15 and how it may appear seen through a good telescope.

The most important thing about this for skywatchers is that Saturn moves from being a "morning object" to being visible all night. For all of April, Saturn rises at sunset, and sets at sunrise.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.

If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

Monday, 9 April 2012

Secular Café: Beware dental X-rays!

Secular Café
Serious discussion of science, skepticism, evolution, pseudoscience, and the paranormal
Beware dental X-rays!
Apr 10th 2012, 06:28

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/he...mour-risk.html

Quote:

Researchers found people who recalled having frequent dental x-rays were more likely than those who did not, to have a form of non-spreading cancer called meningioma.

These tumours grow in the lining inside the skull. Most are slow growing but they can cause problems if they start to press on the brain, and they can be lethal.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.

If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

Secular Café: Should insurers be obliged to pay for acupuncture and other alternative medicine?

Secular Café
Serious discussion of science, skepticism, evolution, pseudoscience, and the paranormal
Should insurers be obliged to pay for acupuncture and other alternative medicine?
Apr 10th 2012, 04:02

CFI is campaigning about this

http://www.centerforinquiry.net/opp/...r_acupuncture/

Quote:

The Center for Inquiry (CFI) today wrote to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asking her to reject lobbying efforts to require health insurance providers and organizations to cover acupuncture, and instead base the government's rules for health care coverage on science and reason...

...According to the Institute of Medicine, for a service to be eligible as an EHB, it must: (1) be safe, (2) be medically effective, (3) demonstrate meaningful improvement, (4) be a medical service, and (5) be cost effective.

As we write in our letter, acupuncture meets none of these five criteria.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.

If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

Secular Café: Dolphins' complex social structure

Secular Café
Serious discussion of science, skepticism, evolution, pseudoscience, and the paranormal
Dolphins' complex social structure
Apr 9th 2012, 19:23

A novel mammalian social structure in Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.): complex male alliances in an open social network
A new level of complexity in the male alliance networks of Indian Ocean bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.)
BBC Nature - Bottlenose dolphins: 'Gangs' run society, scientists say
Male Dolphins Are Bisexual | UA Magazine

From the BBC article, about male dolphins:
Quote:

The first is pairs or trios that work together to capture and herd fertile females. "These consortships can last over a month," Dr Connor explained.

In a "second-order alliance", the animals form "teams" of between four and 14 males which mount attacks on other groups to take their females, or to defend against attacks.

In a third level, the dolphins have "friendly relations" between these larger teams; they join forces to form larger dolphin armies, working together to defend their females against other large, aggressive groups.
Thus making bottlenose dolphins one of the few nonhuman species with that sort of social complexity.

As to dolphins and homosexual sex, I'll give these possibly NSFW YouTube videos:
homosexual dolphins playing at the mirage - YouTube
Dolphins swimming and bonus gay rape - YouTube

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.

If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions